By ALAN SNEL
LVSportsBiz.com
LVSportsBiz.com photos by J. Tyge O’Donnell
The Vegas Golden Knights topped the 750,000 mark in attendance for the 2018-19 regular season with a usual sellout crowd of 18,485 Thursday while losing, 4-1, to the Arizona Coyotes in the VGK’s final regular season game on Fan Appreciation Day at the Big Ice House on the Strip.
The Golden Knights’ ticket revenue likely topped $60 million with that type of attendance as the Las Vegas-based franchise averaged 18,319 fans per game. There’s typically several hundred comps for the visiting team, sponsors and close team friends for each home game.
But the Knights’ average ticket cost hit the $100 mark recently, so paid attendance in Year 2 resulted in a very healthy haul of income for the team owned by Bill Foley and the Maloof brothers. Officially speaking, 2018-19 regular season attendance is 751,067. The Knights filled T-Mobile Arena to 105.5 percent of capacity, second highest in the NHL, trailing only Chicago and its 107.1 percent capacity.
The game itself was a tune-up for the Golden Knights and marked the return of VGK star goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury who has missed nine games and has not seen action since mid-March due to an “injury” of some sort that the team doesn’t discuss. It could have been for a rest, too, since the goalie known as “Flower” was shouldering lots of games and minutes while back-up Malcolm Subban sat on the bench in the first half of the season. Who knows except the VGK coaching brass and Fleury himself? Plus, Fleury’s son was born during the off time, too.
The Knights’ defense did no favors for Fleury. Several VGK mistakes and giveaways set up Arizona Coyotes goals. Even though the Coyotes won, they were eliminated from the playoff hunt when Colorado defeated Winnipeg in OT in Denver.
Golden Knights sponsors from Toyota to Ethel M. Chocolates handed out freebies. Everyone received a small Golden Knights toy helmet and one lucky fan even won a Toyota RAV4 between periods.
The Knights are releasing 1,200 playoff tickets per game Friday at 12 noon to the general public, with lots of those tickets offering access for standing room only. Other tickets are for seats scattered around both the lower and upper bowls, said Todd Pollock, VGK vice president for ticketing and suites. Here’s more on the playoff tickets.
VGK President Kerry Bubolz advised fans to use the VGK Ticket Exchange website to re-sell playoff tickets to guarantee ticket authenticity. The Knights are not keen on ticket scalpers and brokers re-selling VGK game tickets during the playoffs. Bubolz said all tickets are digital and not on paper and he warned there were phony tickets sold during last season’s playoffs. Pollock said there were at least several dozen counterfeit tickets during the inaugural season’s postseason. Here are pictures of phony tickets sold on the secondary market from last year’s playoffs.
If you’re a season ticket holder and you opt out of the “Knight’s Vow” program to have the option of re-selling your tickets, you will pay 50 percent more than the season ticket holder who agreed to the “Vow” to not sell their tickets, Pollock said.
The Golden Knights play their final game of season two in Los Angeles against the Kings Saturday before going to San Jose to play the Sharks ether Wednesday or Thursday in Game 1 of the playoffs’ first round. VGK players gave their jerseys to select fans after Thursday’s game. The NHL Sunday will announce the postseason schedule for round one.
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